Describe an early food experience that has influenced the way you think about food and/or cooking.My mom made the greatest birthday cakes for her kids. She'd decorate them however we'd like and we always loved them. I'm pretty sure my interest in cake decorating came from her.

On my first attempt, I failed to emulsify the allioli due to my impatience with adding the oil. For the second batch, I used an immersion blender in a glass measuring cup. It came together beautifully in a thick, mayonnaise-like texture, but as I turned to grab the salt and lemon to complete the allioli, I left the immersion blender in the cup—big mistake. The glass cup fell to my ceramic tile floor and crashed. There were glass shards and allioli from one end of the kitchen floor to the other. A few gobs even made it onto the cabinets. Needless to say, cleanup was not fun (worse than cleaning the fridge and hand-washing a bunch of dishes)! But the sandwich ended up being really delicious—even though I cheated by rubbing garlic on the bread and spreading on commercial mayonnaise. I just couldn't bear to attempt the allioli a third time!

Photos of hardlikearmour and gnocchi provided by hardliearmous; all others by James Ransom